The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
Director: Joseph Sargent
Had I seen this before: No
As a New Year's treat to myself I have decided to embark on one of my favorite film genres, the heist movie. As a New Year's resolution-ish edification endeavor, I'm gong to try to cover at least a few examples of the genre that I have never seen. Now, you should know that my very first attempt at this was a failure, as I got about 31 minutes into the 170 minutes of Michael Mann's Heat before accepting that I have been correct all these years in assuming that the work of Michael Mann is powerfully, almost elementally, Not For Me. Because I do not want to feel like I wasted 31 minutes of my time, I am now going to waste even more of my time and also some of yours with a mini-review of the first half-hour of Heat. This is the energy I am taking into 2023, i.e., the same energy I have always had about everything.
At the time of this blog post, Heat is streaming on Hulu, which I mention only because I would genuinely appreciate any fellow Hulu subscribers searching for the movie Heat and then letting me know what film or films are listed for you under the "You May Also Like" tag. Because there is exactly one movie in that category when I personally pull up Heat and that is the 1995 Liv Tyler classic Empire Records. I have many, many questions about this, including 1) Am I the only one who sees this? 2) Is the single common link between these two films that they are 1995 movies about white people? 3) If I had gotten more than half an hour into Heat would it have eventually developed some unexpected Rex Manning energy? 4) Does Robert De Niro yell "Damn the man, save the Empire!" at any point? 5) Does Hulu's algorithm believe that Warren's foiled shoplifting attempt makes Empire Records a crime movie? I need answers.
Heat is a serious movie about serious men who know that both crime and anti-crime pursuits are serious and manly. They like to wear chunky gold rings and have sex with beautiful women but they do not like when beautiful women are annoyed with them for coming home very late and missing dinner. Beautiful women do not understand the seriousness of the serious jobs they have. They says things like "drop of a hat, these guys will rock 'n roll" about a brutal triple homicide and do not mean it to be remotely humorous, because things are not funny in the serious man crime game. Humor is for other people, possibly the beautiful women although I doubt it. I highly recommend this film if you like any of the above elements or if you enjoy the ecstatic sense of freedom that comes with abandoning a piece of art that is making you very weary. Alternatively, you can simply do what I did at the recommendation of my brother, which is watch Tom Hiddleston perform the diner scene to the mild amusement of Robert De Niro on the Graham Norton Show.
Now, lest you think I have a blanket aversion to manly men, let me go ahead and introduce you to one tall, rumpled drink of water named Walter Matthau, aka NYC transit cop Lt. Garber. Garber has a brightly colored plaid shirt, the yellowest necktie on God's green earth, a boring job, and borderline-worthless colleagues. The subway train leaving Pelham Station at 1:23 is there for the taking. It's the 1970s, baby! And it's dirtbags all the way down. Everyone involved on both sides of this crime is a little schlubby in the best, most multiple-shades-of-brown sort of way. The hottest person in this movie is Hector Elizando, maybe tied with the guy who played Wilson on Home Improvement. You need some more guys? How about Jerry Stiller as a transit employee who truly does not care about doing his job in any respect? Or maybe I can interest you in Martin Balsam, best known to me as the detective from Psycho, sneezing his way through this movie as one of the hostage-takers? Or the lead hostage-taker, Mr. Robert Shaw, lending the perfect amount of calm British psychopathy to the proceedings? That enough masculinity for ya? There's even plenty of sexism and some truly unfortunate hard-r racism in the mix here--it's just that the 99% of the movie surrounding those elements is extremely well-constructed and fun.
The first ten minutes or so of the film gives us our entire setup in a satisfyingly economical way, not to mention some banging 70s horns. We see a man in a hat, glasses, a mustache, and a trench coat board a subway train--is he suspicious or is it just the 1970s? But then we see an identically outfitted man board, then another--there are, in total, four men in glasses and mustaches and hats and coats and you know what? They look great. What a team. One of them is sneezing a lot. I think this guy's cold really resonated with me because here in Austin we are currently in hell cedar fever season. As this is happening, we also see that one of the train conductors is new at the job, as evidenced by the fact that he is walking through all the steps he needs to do and saying them out loud to the guy training him. We also see the diverse group of soon-to-be-kidnapped passengers boarding the train. At this point did I realize that my beloved Speed contains a lot of Pelham DNA? Oh, you bet I did.
We are also being introduced to Lt. Garber at this time--he's been tasked with giving a tour of the transit police operation to a group of Japanese executives from the Tokyo metro, which is both an amusing, effective bit of exposition and also the source of most of the movie's racism, so....uh, mixed bag there. The transit office is not exactly a bustling and efficient hive of activity--the general vibe of the entire building is "eh, whaddya want" in a New York accent. The degree to which absolutely no one here is prepared to or has any interest in dealing with any sort of crisis is outstanding.
But also, you know, bad, because a crisis they soon have--four bespectacled gentlemen have taken a subway car hostage and are demanding one meeeellion dollars within the hour or they will start killing one hostage per minute. As things progress, two mysteries develop: how do the bad guys plan to get away and who is the plainclothes undercover officer amongst the passengers? Meanwhile, the not-very-beloved mayor is sick in bed with the flu (sick to the point that we see a nurse taking his temperature...not orally) and just wants to be left alone to watch The Newlywed Game.
This movie is so much funnier than I expected, one of the villains goes out in a way that I have absolutely never seen in any other film, Robert Shaw's steely British pronunciation of "Left-tenant" is wonderful, the final shot of the film is a gem, and Matthau just absolutely rules in this. He's slumping, he's skulking, he's mumbling, he's frustrated, he's explaining how subway trains work to me by saying things like "there's a little gizmo known as a dead man's feature." I watched this entire film in less than the time that it would have taken for me to finish Heat yet I could have listened to Walter Matthau explain little gizmos to me all day long.
Line I repeated quietly to myself: "Turn this thing around and burn rubber!"
Is it under two hours: Yes
Did I understand the plan: Yes, mostly, although I have to admit I actually dropped the ball slightly on what was going on with the little gizmo.
Copycat Subway Cold Cut Combo from Recipes.net
The only sustenance any of the passengers brought on board was a sneaky bottle of purse booze, so we gotta make do with a thematic sandwich.
Up next: A remake of a stylish 1960s movie that I believe is about cars and/or how attractive Charlize Theron is